Tarragona is a great alternative to busy Barcelona

If you’re looking for a Spanish city with history and culture without the crowds, try Tarragona.

The best view of Tarragona’s 2AD amphitheatre is from the rooftop pool of my hotel, the H10 Imperial Tarraco.

So when guide David Verdejo arrives to show me around Catalonia’s historic seafront city I take him straight to the sixth floor to get our bearings.

Surveying the limestone arena below, Verdejo explains how spectators once packed its grandstands to watch men hunt tigers and lions or witness deadly duels between gladiators. Often followed by some public executions, especially of Christians who refused to accept the divinity of the Roman gods.

He points me to the Part Alta hill that rises above the Mediterranean and the remains of a circus maximus where chariot races were held. “It was the most popular entertainment in this part of the empire,” Verdejo says. “It was the football or soccer of the time.”

It was also, apparently, a popular spot for romance. The poet Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) provides tips on how to find a partner at the races including – according to Verdejo’s translation – “Sit in front of the person you like so you can rest against their legs.” Steamy times in ancient Tarraco.

Surveying the limestone arena below, Verdejo explains how spectators once packed its grandstands to watch deadly gladiatorial duels.

As we’re strolling around that same hill later I realise much of the 325m-long circus has been swallowed inside newer buildings. I spy first-century vaults in a bank, a bar and a bookstore, as if this is a perfectly natural thing. “What’s exceptional about Tarragona is that we still use the Roman structures,” Verdejo says.

Unlike Barcelona, an hour east along the coast, there are no timed tickets or hefty entry fees to see this former model imperial city. You can wander freely around the 3BC city walls or visit the Roman theatre without crowds or much planning at all. It’s one of the few important European cities I can think of whose treasures haven’t been completely commercialised and overrun with tourists.

But then, until 2000 when Unesco bestowed World Heritage status on the city’s impressive “archaeological ensemble”, Tarragona was mostly known for the sprawling petrochemical complex on its outskirts. So it is still, in the cliched language of travel writing, something of a hidden treasure.

For recreation there’s an entire stretch of Mediterranean seafront called the Costa Dorada.

History aside, Tarragona is food-obsessed in a typically Spanish way – meaning you eat well, whether in the Modernist market sampling affordable snacks and drinks from chalkboard kiosk menus, or at old-school tavernas such as Tofùl where I sip vermouth and snack on squid beside the circa-73AD forum.

There are also fine restaurants such as AQ where Ana Ruiz and Quintín Quinsac present thoughtfully modern takes on classic Catalan dishes. Or Ohashi where brothers Alvaro and Alex Chen serve omakase-style menus of Miyazaki wagyu and tuna from L’Ametlla de Mar, just down the coast. “Our philosophy is very simple – it’s the best produce served in the most simple way for tasting the flavour of each ingredient,” Alvaro says.

I’m also taken by frozen-in-time shopfronts, like J. Cendrós where housewives queue for dried fruits and pulses, and the Forn Andreu bakery with its plump loaves of peasant’s bread. And a plaza just off Rambla Nova avenue, Tarragona’s low-key answer to Barcelona’s Las Ramblas, lined with premium purveyors of all the major food groups including gelato, pastries, charcuterie and wine.

On my final night I venture down to El Serrallo.

For recreation there’s an entire stretch of Mediterranean seafront called the Costa Dorada, or Golden Coast, for its fine sands and shallow, child-friendly beaches.

Back in the old town I bump into Michael from Austria who arrived here 27 years ago to stay for the summer and never left. “I love the combination between the Roman history and the Mediterranean life,” he says. “The smell, the narrow streets, the weather.”

On my final night I venture down to El Serrallo, a fishing village now lined with pastel apartment blocks, a palm-shaded boardwalk and a marina where private yachts park up beside working boats. El Posit is a glossy two-storey restaurant at Moll de Pescadors, the Fishermen’s Wharf, offering regional seafood from delta oysters and hand washed Vinaròs anchovies to razor clams and a fish soup cooked to an old family recipe. Often served with a side of nutty, rich romesco sauce, a Tarragona specialty.

I decide to walk back to the H10 through backstreets, feeling perfectly safe.

After trying but failing to finish a groaning platter of calamari and octopus, salt-cod fritters, white bait and padrón peppers, I decide to walk back to the H10 along the waterfront and through backstreets, feeling perfectly safe and thinking – as I often do in newly discovered European cities – “Could I live here?” Perhaps. At the very least I’ll come back and stay longer next time.

Like a local

For a solid introduction to the city’s history, food and character I can’t recommend Itinere Tarragona highly enough. After spending a day on a private tour with founder Xavi Mejuto I almost felt like a local. turismedetarragona.com

The writer visited Tarragona as a guest of Turisme de Catalunya.

Originally published as Tarragona is a great alternative to busy Barcelona